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Helpless.
“I just hate feeling so helpless.”
A friend texted me this a few weeks ago… I had a lung infection that wasn’t improving and it left us both feeling in the same boat.
The helpless one. Without a paddle.
For me, it was a month of frustration and hitting my head against a brick wall. For her, it was years of watching me go through it and knowing there was nothing in the arsenal of “say or do” that would change a darn thing.
I texted her back something I had honestly never thought before, until the words had escaped my fast moving fingers: “I feel helpless, too. But maybe I just need to remember that I’m supposed to be helpless. I’m not supposed to have control over it.”
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To read the rest of the post, click: Helpless.
:: Edited to add full post ::
“I just hate feeling so helpless.”
A friend texted me this a few weeks ago… I had a lung infection that wasn’t improving and it left us both feeling in the same boat.
The helpless one. Without a paddle.
For me, it was a month of frustration and hitting my head against a brick wall. For her, it was years of watching me go through it and knowing there was nothing in the arsenal of “say or do” that would change a darn thing.
I texted her back something I had honestly never thought before, until the words had escaped my fast moving fingers: “I feel helpless, too. But maybe I just need to remember that I’m supposed to be helpless. I’m not supposed to have control over it.”
And suddenly I believed what I had just written. I felt a bit of relief and let God take it off of my shoulders. Which made sense, since my shoulders weren’t the location it was ever supposed to rest in the first place.
I had realized a long time ago that worry was a result of not trusting God… I drew a line in the sand and chose God over the worry. Anytime it would creep in I would literally stop and remind myself that God has never left me alone and was not about to start now. I landed on the day when enough was enough and worry [fear] got taken off the table.
It was time to do that with feeling helpless, too.
Oh, don’t get me wrong… I still feel helpless. But that’s not such a bad thing anymore. Instead, it’s a burden released to the One who can shoulder it for me. I’m not fighting the feeling of helplessness because it no longer means that I’m weak. That I need to fight harder. That I need to figure out the riddle when there is no real answer.
No, I still feel helpless. And I am strangely comforted by the fact that it’s not my job to figure it out. I can find strength in being helpless because I know that God is the one in control of it. Not me. Not my friends. Not even my doctors.
He knows what to do. He knows how to handle it. I’m just along for the ride.
My only job is to trust Him. And I can do that. THAT is in my control.
Apparently, it’s the same lesson just being looked at and learned from different angles. And it always comes down to trust.
So tell me, what makes you feel helpless? And can you lay it in the arms of the One who is strong?
